Dr. Eugene Odum
Father of Modern Ecology

In early August Eugene Odum passed away at the age of 88, and the world lost one of the most influential figures in the field of ecology. Dr. Odum has been dubbed “the father of modern ecology” and is credited with pioneering the concept of the ecosystem. His textbook Fundamentals of Ecology, published in 1953, was the catalyst that changed ecology from the study of the microcosm to the study of the macrocosm. Former President Jimmy Carter said, “The work of Dr. Odum changed the way we look at the natural world and our place in it.”

Eugene Odum was born in 1913 and grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Odum credited his forest surroundings with instilling in him a love of nature, and his father, a distinguished sociologist, taught him his holistic way of thinking. Eugene became interested in birds as a child, and while in junior high school wrote a nature column with a friend that ran in the local newspaper. Odum’s interest in birds led him to zoology and the University of North Carolina where he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. At that time scientific studies concentrated on specific components: individual plants or species, organisms, or molecules. Eugene realized that he wanted to examine the whole picture; he wanted to study living birds and how their lives related to their environment. He chose the University of Illinois for his doctorate because it was one of the few schools at the time that accepted this holistic approach.

After graduation, Odum took a job as resident naturalist for the Hyuck Preserve in upstate New York. There he began to research birds and their habitats, which led to a greater understanding of how entire ecosystems work. Odum became convinced that it was important to study how one part of an ecosystem affects another. In 1940 he began teaching zoology at the University of Georgia, as the school’s only ecologist. At that time, ecology, as a scientific discipline, existed as small-scale studies of individual systems, such as ponds or marshes, which could be understood in isolation. Odum considered ecology an integrated discipline that brings all of the sciences together instead of breaking them apart. He presented the idea of making ecology part of the core curriculum for biology majors, only to realize that no textbook on ecology existed. He began work on a textbook with the help of his brother Howard, also a noted ecologist.

Odum’s textbook explained that scientists could look at the whole system; weather patterns, watersheds, and regional plant and animal populations, as a whole. He made the relationship between human actions and the consequences of those actions on nature an essential part of the concept of an ecosystem. For ten years Fundamentals of Ecology was the only textbook in the field of ecology. It was translated into many languages and was crucial in the training of an entire generation of ecologists.

Odum was responsible for the establishment in 1954 of the University of Georgia’s Marine Institute on Sapelo Island, off the coast of Georgia. Tobacco tycoon R. J. Reynolds donated the use of the southern part of the island for the study of ecosystems in Georgia’s coastal marshes. The Institute’s mission of marine research continues today. Odum was chiefly responsible for founding the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, also operated by the University of Georgia. This 300 square mile environmental laboratory was established to determine if the nearby Savannah River Site, built in the early 1950’s to produce materials used in the fabrication of nuclear weapons, had any effect on the area’s plants and animals.

In 1960 the University of Georgia founded the Institute of Ecology and named Odum its first director. The Institute quickly made a name for itself, training a generation of scientists committed to Odum’s holistic method of looking at the world around us. The environmental movement grew in the 1960’s and Odum’s concept of ecosystem became its cornerstone. By the time of the first Earth Day in 1970, his concept of the Earth as a vast set of interlocking ecosystems became the dominant theme of the environmental movement and it remains as important today.

Odum retired from the University of Georgia in 1984 but continued to work every day and published his last book, Ecological Vignettes, in 1998. Eugene Odum was awarded numerous honors throughout his career. His influence in the field of ecology is immeasurable. President Jimmy Carter summed it up when he said “We cannot overestimate the value of Dr. Odum’s work in making spaceship Earth a better place for us all.”